Manly’s glittering finals reputation has taken a massive hit at the hands of an Adam Reynolds-inspired South Sydney in a 40-24 hammering in the opening to the NRL finals at Allianz Stadium on Friday night.
The Rabbitohs dominated every facet of the qualifying final that mattered against a hapless Sea Eagles before 25,733 fans, as Souths claimed brutal retribution for their loss to the same opponents in last year’s preliminary final.
Souths bashed their way to a 40-0 lead after 56 minutes before Manly added some respectability to the scoreline with four tries in the last 16 minutes.
Reynolds scored two tries, as did Alex Johnston, in a personal haul of 20 points as the Rabbitohs progressed to the third week of the finals and their third successive preliminary final.
Already hit hard by injuries to Glenn Stewart, Matt Ballin and Jamie Buhrer, Manly’s cause wasn’t helped by a neck injury to stand-in dummy half Jayden Hodges, who went down after a 14th minute tackle on Greg Inglis and was taken to hospital at halftime for precautionary scans.
Winger Peta Hiku filled in for him.
But it is doubtful whether a fit Hodges would have made any difference as the 2008 and 2011 premiers were swamped in their 10th successive finals series.
Manly next Friday meet the winner of Sunday’s elimination final between Melbourne and Canterbury at AAMI Park and Anthony Watmough (dangerous throw), Jamie Lyon (dangerous throw) and Kieran Foran (high tackle) face nervous waits over their availability.
Souths opened their account in the 11th minute when Reynolds latched onto a Dylan Walker grubber.
With the Rabbitohs totally dominating the forward exchanges, Souths added to their lead in the 18th minute when Reynolds kicked for his halves partner Luke Keary to cross. And the favourites picked up a 12-0 lead on the back of Walker and Kirisome Auva’a combining for a 60m move on the Rabbitohs’ left hand side.
It was around the same time in the 2013 preliminary final that Manly fought their way back from 14-0 down, but Souths just surged on this occasion.
With Manly on the back foot and Hodges struggling with the injury, winger Lote Tuqiri outjumped his opposite Jorge Taufua for a spectacular touchdown from a Reynolds highball in the 27th minute.
Manly hardly had the ball out of their own half in the first 40 minutes and Alex Johnston added to their misery in the 35th minute when he scored out wide off a set play, that came after he dropped the ball over the line in the 23rd minute.
That sent the Rabbitohs to the break 22-0 ahead and the one-way traffic continued in the second half.
Reynolds grubbered for himself to add his second just two minutes after the restart and Walker crossed off a set move through some more soft goalline defence from Manly in the 52nd minute.
Johnston then streaked away for his double in the 55th minute for Souths to gap the lead to 40-0.
Manly finally scored in the 64th minute through Brett Stewart and Jamie Lyon added to that four minutes later.
Tom Symonds added to that in another consolation effort for Manly in the 75th minute, before Cheyse Blair added Manly’s fourth in the shadows of fulltime.
